Palestinian Leaders Defied Villagers' Fury In Protecting Israelis

Palestinians (front and left) try to prevent fellow Palestinians from the village of Qusra from attacking a group of Israeli settlers after they sparked clashes upon entering the village near Nablus, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on Jan. 7.

Ziad Oday (left), a village council member and imam in Qusra, and Abdel Wadi, Qusra village council head, intervened in the recent clash between Jewish settlers and angry Palestinians. They're shown here on a hill in Qusra.

Pinahasi Baron is one of the Jewish settlers who were trapped by Palestinians last week in Qusra village and later arrested by Israeli police. He is shown here in Esh Kodesh, an Israeli outpost settlement across the valley from Qusra.

Emily HarrisNPR

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Originally published on January 17, 2014 11:19 am

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, incidents between Jewish settlers and Palestinians happen almost every day. Olive trees and grapevines are destroyed, tires are slashed, mosques are defaced. It's not just property destruction. Violence has cost lives on both sides.

All this keeps on-the-ground tensions at a constant simmer, sometimes boiling over. But last week, a potentially explosive confrontation took an unusual turn. The unexpected resolution also highlights disagreement within the Israeli community over settler actions.

More than a dozen Israelis, the youngest 14, were trapped in a half-built house by a crowd of angry Palestinians. They were later rescued by other Palestinians from the same community.

It happened in a valley between Esh Kodesh, a small community of Jewish families that was built without the approval of the Israeli government, and the Palestinian village of Qusra, in the central West Bank.

Palestinians say the settlers had come to the village to destroy property. There had already been one small confrontation in a village olive grove that day.

This time, Palestinians cornered the Israelis, an angry scene caught on video and later shown on TV. People had been hurt on both sides. Pinahasi Baron, a 23-year-old who lives in Esh Kodesh, was among the settlers. He was hit in the head with a rock.

"I thought they were going to kill me," he said, days after the incident. "I thought about my wife and children. And I thought about the hope that people will come and avenge our death."

Ziad Oday is a religious leader in Qusra and sits on the village council. He and other leaders rushed over when they heard what was going on. He said there was still some fighting when he arrived, but soon all the Israelis were under Palestinian control.

"We saw how the settlers' faces were bleeding, how they'd been beaten up by our young men," says Oday. "Our message to them was leave us alone; we don't want to kill you. We do want to show our strength."

Qusra village council head Abdel Wadi is the first person locals call when they are in confrontations with settlers. He arrived around the same time as Oday, and says he and other Palestinian authorities put themselves physically between the cornered settlers and the angry crowd. He says despite the fury of his fellow villagers, he did not want this to turn into a tragedy.

"We acted despite the fact that our citizens were extremely angry," says Wadi."They are always angry because they are sons and daughters of martyrs, because their houses have been burned by settlers before, because their trees have been uprooted."

The actions of the village leaders won grudging thanks from settler supporters. One conservative Israeli commentator wrote that although he hated to perform a "degrading dance" in front of Israelis who oppose settlements in the West Bank, he had to "do the decent thing" and acknowledge that many settler attacks on Palestinians are immoral and should be stopped.

Dani Dayan agrees. He leads the Yesha Council, a settler political group, and feels actions carried out by an extremist fringe is hurting the settler movement overall.

"Not only does it not help our cause, it's the single most dangerous, most detrimental issue," Dayan says. "The people that commit these things are both criminals and idiots."

But Gadi Zohar, a former Israeli military commander in the West Bank, says the Yesha Council and extremist young settlers share a political goal: stopping negotiations that could lead to a possible Palestinian state.

"They do not want this process to succeed," Zohar says, referring to the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians that restarted with U.S. prodding last July. "They do not want to be evacuated."

Zohar doesn't think the Yesha Council offers direct support to settlers who carry out violence. But he says the group's leadership could do a lot more to try to stop such incidents.

The trapped Israeli settlers were eventually turned over to Israeli troops. The settlers say they were only out for a hike that day, but Israeli police later detained half a dozen, putting them under house arrest for five days for entering Palestinian areas and attempting to destroy property.

Pinahasi Baron was among those arrested. He says the settlers lost this round, but vowed not to let anything like that happen again.

"Maybe we'll walk with weapons to make sure they won't dare attack us again," Pinahasi says. "We've made some decisions I can't tell you about. But these scenes will not be seen again."

People in Qusra say they get along fine with some settler neighbors, who live just yards away, and come into the Palestinian village to shop. Several young men in Qusra said their leaders did the right thing by saving the settlers. One said he would have obeyed the village council members, if he had been part of the incident. But his feeling, he said, would have been to break the settlers' necks.

Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Transcript

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, near-daily incidents between Jewish settlers and Palestinians keep tensions at a constant simmer. Olive trees and grapevines are destroyed, tires are slashed, mosques are defaced. U.N. figures show that settlers are responsible for the vast majority of incidents and those have nearly quadrupled since 2006.

NPR's Emily Harris has this story of one unusual confrontation and its surprising resolution.

EMILY HARRIS, BYLINE: High on a hill in the West Bank, 23-year-old Pinahasi Baron helps build a house. He lives here in Esh Kodesh, a small community of Jewish families which was built without the approval of the Israeli government. Last week, Baron and more than a dozen other Israelis were trapped in a different half-built house across the valley on the edge of a Palestinian village.

Palestinians say the settlers had come to the village to destroy property. There had already been one relatively small confrontation that day.

(SOUNDBITE OF SHOUTING)

HARRIS: This time, Palestinians cornered the Israelis, an angry scene caught on video and later shown on TV. People had been hurt on both sides.

Pinahasi Baron.

PINAHASI BARON: (Through translator) I thought they were going to kill me. I thought about my wife and children. I thought about the hope that people will come and avenge our death.

HARRIS: Ziad Oday was there too. He and other leaders from the nearby Palestinian village of Qusra had rushed over when they heard what was going on.

ZIAD ODAY: (Through translator) We saw how the settlers' faces were bleeding, how they'd been beaten up by our young men. Our message to them was leave us alone. We don't want to kill you. We do want to show our strength.

HARRIS: Village council head Abdel Wadi said he and other Palestinian authorities put themselves physically between the cornered settlers and the angry crowd.

ABDEL WADI: (Through translator) We did not want to turn this event as a black day for both Palestine and Israel. We acted despite the fact that our citizens were extremely angry, and are always angry because their houses have been burned by settlers before, because their trees were uprooted.

HARRIS: The actions of the village leaders won grudging thanks from settler supporters. One conservative Israeli commentator said although he hated to admit it, many settler attacks on Palestinians are immoral and should be stopped.

Dani Dayan, the leader of a settler political group, agrees. He says an extremist fringe is hurting the settler movement overall.

DANI DAYAN: Not only does it not help our cause, it's the single most dangerous, most detrimental issue. The people that commit these things are both criminals and idiots.

HARRIS: But Gadi Zohar, a former Israeli military commander in the West Bank, says Dayan's group, the Yesha Council, and extremist young settlers share a political goal: stopping negotiations that could lead to a possible Palestinian state.

DAYAN: They do not want this process to succeed and they do not want to be evacuated, and so on. I don't think these youngsters are part of the Yesha Council policy or being directly supported. But the Yesha leadership is not active enough in order to try to stop these activities.

HARRIS: The settlers trapped in the half-built house were eventually turned over to Israeli troops. They maintain they were only out for a hike that day, but Israeli police later detained half a dozen, putting them under house arrest for five days for entering Palestinian areas and attempting to destroy property.

Pinahasi Baron was among those arrested. He says he will not be trapped by Palestinians again.

BARON: (Through translator) We lost this one, but it will never happen again. Maybe we'll walk with weapons to make sure they won't dare attack us again. We've made some decisions which I can't tell you about. But these scenes will not be seen again.

HARRIS: Several people in Qusra said their leaders did the right thing by saving the settlers. One young Palestinian man said he would have listened to the village council members if he had been part of the incident. But his feeling, he said, would have been to break the settlers' necks.